Surprisingly it’s not cryptocurrency. The picks of Market Research Media are blockchain technology platforms powering government critical infrastructure and all elements of global trade ecosystem – supply chain management, shipping and logistics. A recent joint venture between Maersk and IBM is a perfect example of industry-wide adoption of block chain technology to grease the wheels of global trade:

“The cost and size of the world’s trading ecosystems continues to grow in complexity. More than $4 trillion in goods are shipped each year, and more than 80 percent of the goods consumers use daily are carried by the ocean shipping industry. The maximum cost of the required trade documentation to process and administer many of these goods is estimated to reach one-fifth of the actual physical transportation costs. According to The World Economic Forum, by reducing barriers within the international supply chain, global trade could increase by nearly 15 percent, boosting economies and creating jobs.

The attributes of blockchain technology are ideally suited to large networks of disparate partners. A distributed ledger technology, blockchain establishes a shared, immutable record of all the transactions that take place within a network and then enables permissioned parties access to trusted data in real time. By applying the technology to digitize global trade processes, a new form of command and consent can be introduced into the flow of information, empowering multiple trading partners to collaborate and establishing a single shared view of a transaction without compromising details, privacy or confidentiality”, Press Release “Maersk and IBM to Form Joint Venture Applying #Blockchain to Improve Global Trade and Digitize Supply Chains”

No matter how small or exotic a trade transaction and its surrounding logistics might be, in a few years the blockhain technology will be part of it.

Governments are eager to better evaluate and adopt distributed ledger technologies (like blockchain) that use encryption and coding to improve transparency, efficiency and trust in information sharing, according to Market Research Media survey covering federal agencies and U.S. businesses who are interested in exploring distributed ledger technology and its implementation within government and questioning federal managers from dozens of unique agencies to discuss use cases, limitations, and solutions.

Blockchain use cases that governments adopt for exploration touch many parts and processes of an government organization, including: